Ahemdabad

Remember that form I filled out when we first arrived? The one that said I will get ripped-off while in India? Well for the first time did I feel like this was true through the full trip. It started with the “coolies”, the bag assistants from the train station. Unlike in America where there is either a set price or it is straight gratuity, in India it is required that you give them what you feel is fair and unless you grossly overestimated they will bitch and complain about you not giving them enough. In our case we attempted to give them 100 rupees (2 bux) for 7 bags that they wheeled on a cart and really didn’t do too much. They started screaming at Raju in Hindi and was a big ordeal. At the same time the “cab” wanted 500 rupees (ten bux) to basically down the street. We knew this was a rip-off because we only paid 7 rupees a km the rest of the trip. Once we got rid of the coolies with another 100 rupees, we started driving. It was over 90 degrees and the AC wasn’t on. I noticed that the car had it so I had Vatsala ask for him to turn it on. The SOB wanted more money to turn it on. I started cussing at him in English and though he didn’t understand he got the idea. Vatsala called him a cheat and stupid because he was sweating his ass off as much as us. Once we arrived at the hotel we discovered they wanted 675 rupees a day for Internet service. People in India only pay a couple hundred a month and we were only supposed to be charged 350 in Mumbai in a “nicer”hotel. The restaurant in the hotel was double the price with half the portions. The only good was the price of the hotel and the beds.

We were all tired and crashed until real late and then woke-up and had dinner. As we were getting ready for bed the news of the Mumbai Terror Attacks were trickling in. Once I saw that it wasn't an isolated incident but all over Mumbai, I first prayed that we had left that morning and then called my Mom to let them know we were 600 km away. I stayed up until 1:00 AM watching all the stuff as it was happening. I am not sure of the pictures or videos shown in America but locally they were showing "freshly" shot people and you could hear the explosions live. 24 hours earlier we were all over where these attacks were happening. 

One thing I haven't seen mentioned anywhere wasw two days prior to the attacks the hotels had heavily beefed up security. The last couple days the hotels were doing the mirror check under cars and requiring they open their trunks and hoods. So regardless to what the  news says, SOMEONE knew some shit was about to go down!!!